Smokehouse



L. BRAND SIOKEHOUS E Filed July 5, 1924 4 Sheets-Sheet 2 INVEN TOR LeoBranci Arm/mks Jgn, 27, 1925.

L. ..-RAND SIOKEHOUSE Filed July 5, 1924 INVEIVTDR LeoBmncZ WITNESSES MW ATTORNEYS Patented Jan. 27, 1925.

UNITED STATES LEO BRAND, OF NEW YORK, N. Y.

SMOKEHOUSE.

Application filed July 5, 1924. Serial No. 724,344.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, LEO BRAND, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of the city of New York, borough of Manihattan, in the county and State of New York, have invented a new and Improved Smokehouse, of which the following is a full, clear, and exact description.

This invention relates to smoke houses and more particularly to an apparatus which may be used as a smoke house, as a. bake oven, or for any other analogous use, and while I shall hereinafter refer to the apparatus as a smoke house I would have it understood that I use this term for convenience in description only as it is obvious that I do not limit myself to the particular use of the apparatus,

An object of the invention is to provide a smoke house into which a cage can be moved and while supported in the house is slowly revolved so as to insure a perfect smoking of the articles in the cage.

A further object is to provide a smoke house in which a rotary hanger supports a track adapted to be alined with a stationary track outside of the smoke house and adapted to receive a cage supported upon a wheeled hanger movable upon the track and when in the smoke house adapted to be revolved during the smoking operation.

With these and other objects in view, the invention consists in certain novel features of construction and combinations and arrangements of parts which will be more fully hereinafter described and pointed out in the claims.

In the accompanying drawings-- Figure 1 is a view in longitudinal section illustrating one embodiment of my invention;

Figure 2 is a top plan view of Figure 1;

Figure 3 is a view in section on the line of Figure 2;

Figure t is a view of one of the side plates for the cage;

Figure 5 illustrates a rack or tray which may be supported in the cage,

Figures 6 and 7 are plan views illustrating modifications;

Figure 8 is a detailed view in side elevation illustrating a manually operable means for alining the smoke house track with the stationary track.

Referring more particularly to Figures 1, 2, 3, 4: and 5, 1 represents a casing which may be of any size and shape but is preferably of general rectangular form having its walls of sheet metal of double thickness whereby an insulation of asbestos or other non-heat conducting material 2 may be inserted-in the double wall to prevent loss of heat.

This casing 1 is also provided at one side of the front with a pair of hinged doors 3, and a stationary elevated rail 4. is located outside of the casing and projects slightly into the casing through recesses 5 in the doors 3. This rail 4 may be supported in any suitable manner, preferably by hangers 6, and may be of any length desired, as will be readily understood.

Inside the casing 1 at the top thereof I provide a hanger 7 which is secured to a vertical shaft 8 projecting through the top of the casing 1 and mounted in a suitable bearing 9. This hanger 7 supports a relatively short rail 10 having a hinged section 11 adapted to couple with the fixed rail 5 so as to guide a carriage 12 from the rail 10 to the rail 1 and vice versa. This carriage 12 has a depending hook 13 adapted to engage an eye 14 at the top of a cage 15.

The cage 15 is of a suitable size and shape and of suitableconstruction so as to support a relatively large quantity of material. The primary purpose of this device is to smoke sausages and the like and hence this cage 15 is provided with a plurality of horizontal bars 16 on which sticks supporting strings of sausages can be hung for smoking operations. In other articles to be smoked or if the device is to be used for other purposes as, for instance, for baking I preferably support trays or racks 17, as illustrated in Figure 5 on bars 16 although.

I would have it understood distinctly that I am not limited to this construction of the cage,

The cage is preferably closed at its top and at its sides by removable plates 18 and 19, respectively. These plates 18 and 19 are preferably formed with hanger brackets 21 which can be convenientlysupported on the top of the cage and as conveniently removed as occasion may require. By providing this removableassemblage of plates the articles of food can be readily assembled in the cage and then enclosed. Also after the smoking, baking or cooking operation is ended the plates can be conveniently removed to permit access to the articles or goods.

A bottom plate 22 is fixed to the cage and "has a central opening 23 in which a vertically movable rod '24; is mounted and is provided with ahead '25 at its upper end to limit its downward movement. I

Inside of the casing, preferably'fixed to V the bottom thereof, I provide a tubular standard 26 which is adapted to receive the rod 24= when the cage is in the casing, and it is obvious that In moving the cage into the casing the rod must be elevated and U when properly centered the rod will drop into "the tubular standard 26 and maintain a rin the cage centrally in the casing.

In the bottom of the casing any desired number of burners 27 are'provided which may communicate with a. supply pipe 28 for gas or other suitable fluid, the burners being controlled by suitable cocks 29. At least one of the burners is in the form of as indicated at 30, located centrally in the bottom'of the casing so as to insure a heating of the central portion of the casing. A suitable plate or grid 31 may be located above the burners and when the device isutiliz'ed as a smoke house the bottom of the casing will contain sawdust and theli'ke, as is customary in the trade.

.On top of the casing 1 I locate a gear casing 32 and into this gear casing the shaft 8 above referred to projects and is sup-- ported against downward movement on a suitable ball bearing 33, the shaft being enlarged 'as shown at 34- to maintain a thrust upon the bearing 33. A gear wheel 35 on "the shaft 8 'n'ieshes witha pinion 36 ona counter-shaft 37 and this pinion 36 is preferably'loose on the shaft 37 and is con nected thereto by a c-lutch-38 operated by a rod 39 having a ha-ndwheel 10 at one end. "This-rod 39 has a crank armor offset portion 11 adapted to engage a pivoted arm 42 engaging one member of the clutch 38 so as to lift the clutch. into engaging position and to hold it in such position and permit such clutch to fall out of engagement when the arm 41 is moved to the position indicated in Figure 3.

I would have it understood that the invention is in no sense limited to the manner of operating the clutch and the illustration is simply to show the means by which the pinion 36 may be locked to the shaft 37 or disengaged therefrom at the convenience of the operator.

On the shaft 37 a relatively large worm wheel 43 is secured and is driven by a worm 44 on a shaft 45 supported in suitable brackets 46 on top of the casing 1. This shaft 45 has a large gear wheel 47 driven by a pinion 48 on a motor shaft 49. This shaft 49 is driven by an electric motor 50 on the top of the casing although I would have it understood that the invention is not limited to any particular power transmission mechanism as this may be varied to suit the trade.

A damper 51 normally closes an outlet 52 in the top of the casing 1 and this damper is controlled by a rod 53, as clearly sho'i'vn in Figure 2.

The operation is as follows":

The cage 15 is filled at any suitable loading point and is moved along therail 4- into the casing 1 on to the rail 10, the rail section 11 being ofcours'e in its horizontal position during such movement. \Vhen the cage is moved into the casing l the rod 24. is placed in the tubular standard 26 and the rail section 11 is swung to its uncoupled position. The motor 50 is then started through the medium of the gear train above described. the cage 15 are caused to revolve slowly so that the entire contents of the cage are uniformly subjected to the temperature, smoke, etc. After the operation is completed rail 10 is alined with rail 4, and in order to permit this the clutch 38 is disengaged so that the hanger can be manually moved to bring the rail sections inio register.

In the modification illustrated in Figure 6, I show a casing 55 of a size large enough to admit a pair of cages 15 disposed in tandem. In such a construction it is necessary to provide independent gear trains 56 corresponding to the gear train of the preferred form. In order, however, that these gez'irtrains may be separately moved in manually alining the rail sections I form the motor driven drive shaft 57 in two sections connected by a clutch operated by a lever 59. In other'respects the construction is similar to that above described.

In Figure 7 I illustrate another modification in which the casing 60 admits a pair of cages 15 side by side. These cages and their hangers are turned by gear trains G1 driven from a two-section shaft 62 connected by a manually operated clutch (33. it being understood that the shaft sections 62 are driven from any source of power as,

may be enumerated as follows:

for example, from a pulley 64 with a suitable clutch pulley 65 adjacent thereto.

On the shaft section 62 at the ends of the casing 60 I provide sprocket wheels 66 connected by chains 67 with sprocket wheels 68 mounted on the ends of the casing. These sprocket chains 67 can be gripped by the operator to manually turn the rails 10 to bring them into register with the rails I. In other words, these sprocket chains 67 and their connected parts constitute a convenient medium for manually turning the hangers 7 and the rails 10 to bring the rails 10 into alinement with the rails 4 and perform this operation from the outside of the casing.

As a matter of fact, a mechanism of this type outside of the casing is deemed by me to be a preferred construction and arrangement not only because of its simplicity but because of the fact that it is practically fool-proof and enables the operator to aline the rail sections without touching the hot cage or parts within the casing.

My improved apparatus embodies many advantages over the old apparatus and methods in general use. A few of these With my improved apparatus the meat products or other articles of food can be completely assembled in the cage or cages, rolled into the casing and uniformly smoked or cooked by reason of the fact that the cage is continuously and slowly revolved so that even if the weather conditions or other conditions cause a portion of the interior of the casing to be hotter than other portions, or the smoke to be unevenly distributed in the casing all the articles of food in the cage will be nevertheless evenly subjected to the smoke or temperature.

Furthermore, an apparatus of this kind not only insures better results but also prevents loss of smoke and heat as it is unnecessary to open the doors from time to time to inspect the operation and manually turn the cage as is common with apparatus in general use, but because of this fact a great saving of time is assured and this is one of the most important elements under consideration, as the elements of labor, economy and time co-operate to reduce shrinkage of the meat products which is very vital to the trade.

lVhile I have illustrated what I believe to be a preferred embodiment of my invention, it is obvious various slight changes and alterations might be made in the general form of the parts described without departing from my invention, and hence I do not limit myself to the precise details set forth but consider myself at liberty to make such slight changes and alterations as fairly fall within the spirit and scope of the ap-.

pended claims.

I claim:

1. An apparatus of the character described, comprising a casing, a hanger in the casing, a rail supported on the hanger, a fixed rail outside of the casing and adapted to register with the rail in the casing, a carriagejmovable on the rails, a cage suspended from the carriage, and means for imparting rotary motion to the hanger and the cage when the latter is in the casing.

2. An apparatus of the character described, comprising a casing, a hanger in the casing, a rail supported on the hanger, a fixed rail outside of the casing and adapted to register with the rail in the easing, a carriage movable on the rails, a cage suspended from the carriage, means for imparting rotary motion to the hanger and the cage when the latter is in the casing, and means for manually moving the hanger to register the rail carried thereby with the fixed rail.

3. An apparatus of the character described, comprising a casing, a hanger in the casing, a rail supported on the hanger, a fixed rail. outside of the casing and adapted to register with the rail in the casing, a carriage movable on the rails, a cage suspended from the carriage, means for imparting rotary motion to the hanger and the cage when the latter is in the casing, and means for manually moving the hanger to register the rail carried thereby to the fixed rail, said last-mentioned means located outside of the casing.

4. An apparatus of the character described, comprising a casing, a hanger in the casing, a rail supported by the hanger, a fixed rail outside of the casing adapted to register with the rail in the casing, a car rier movable on said rails, a cage removably suspended from the carrier, a rod carried by the cage, and a tubular standard in the casing adapted to receive the rod and center the cage in the casing.

An apparatus of the character described, comprising a casing, a hanger in the casing, a rail supported by the hanger, a fixed rail outside of the casing adapted to register with the rail in the casing, a carrier movable on said rails, a cage removably suspended from the carrier, a rod carried by the cage, a tubular standard in the casing adapted to receive the rod and center the cage in the casing, a gear train on top of the casing, and means for imparting motion to the gear train to turn the hanger and the cage in the casing.

6. An apparatus of the character described, comprising a casing, a hanger in the casing, a rail on the hanger, a carrier movable on the rail, a rail outside of the casing adapted to guide the carrier into and out of the casing, a cage suspended from the carrier, removable plates on the top and sides carrier, -1'e1n0vable plates "on the top and sides of thecasing; dampers in said plates, m'e'ilns fer centering the cage in the casing, and burners in the bOt tOIII of the casing, at least one of said burners constituting a ring ldcated centrally in the casing.

LEO BRAND. 

